


if you wanna

by PitchonthePitch



Series: AUgust Soulmate AU's [12]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Diary/Journal, F/F, First Meetings, Fluff, Meet-Cute, like a normal college, without magic lessons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-20 04:23:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20221744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PitchonthePitch/pseuds/PitchonthePitch
Summary: Journal - Everyone has a journal that allows them to write back and forth with their soulmate.Alice Quinn has misplaced her journal.Margo finds a particularly interesting book in the school library.  When Alice finds the other girl with her journal, she's ready to give her a rant about Respecting Other People's Privacy.





	if you wanna

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings can be found in the End Notes!

Margo found it in the school library. She’d been especially bored that morning. Eliot was too hungover from last night to get out of bed, leaving her to hang out with Quentin. Quentin, of course, wanted to go to the library to study because today was ‘Sunday,’ and he had an ‘essay’ due ‘tomorrow,’ and he didn’t want to ‘flunk out’ of the university. So, Margo begrudgingly accompanied him to the library. She’d have a better time with Quentin than she would taking care of a hungover Eliot.

They walked through the aisles as Quentin looked for a book for his class. She ran her fingers along the spines of the books they passed. Margo used to like reading when she was younger, but now that she was in college, she never had the time. Even Quentin, bookworm that he was, rarely read for fun anymore. (Unless he was rereading the Fillory series.) (Which, Margo could admit, was pretty great for a kid’s series that was basically a ripoff of Narnia.)

Then she found it: a blank, leather-bound journal that looked exactly like the one Margo herself owned.

Margo was a private person by nature. She may have been the school’s biggest gossip, but Margo kept her own business to herself. What could she say? Growing up with a toxic family had made her less inclined to trust people. Margo learned early on not to share her weaknesses with others, unless she wanted to get taken advantage of.

Then she found her journal. She was around twelve-years-old at the time, by herself at a local bookstore. She’d been bored that day, too, aimlessly thumbing through books on the shelf without really looking at them. None of her family members were ever home. Her parents were always working, and her older sister was always out. When Margo got lonely as a kid, books were her confidants and her confessors. They told her their secrets and accepted her feelings and empathized with her in a way that people rarely did. Margo had never been a quiet kid; she often chatted with strangers. But she _conversed_ with books. Books spoke to her in a way no one else had ever bothered to.

But none spoke to her quite like her journal. That day in the bookstore, Margo had pulled out the leather-bound notebook with something akin to wonder. She felt at once connected to it. She immediately brought it to the cashier and asked for a price; there was none printed on the book.

The cashier had looked at her with wide eyes and told her she could have the book for free. “It’s yours. It belongs to you.”

Margo had been reluctant. “Are you sure? I have money.”

But the cashier had waved her away. “It’s your journal. One day, your soulmate will find their journal, and the two of you will be able to write to each other.”

Margo had started writing in her journal immediately. She wanted her soulmate to understand her as well as her books did. She wanted to share herself with her soulmate completely.

Now, as she pulled this leather-bound book from her school’s shelves, Margo felt the same sense of wonder she’d experienced all those years ago. When she pulled open the book, she saw that the inside of it was the same as hers. The first ten or twenty pages were full of Margo’s handwriting. A list of her favorite books. Stories about her fucked-up family. Her favorite color, her favorite animal, everything that had seemed like pertinent information for her soulmate to know.

The pages after those were filled with conversations between her and Alice. Secrets shared. Empathy freely given. A mutual understanding that was more powerful than anything Margo had experienced with any other book or person.

This book was her soulmate’s journal. Margo had found her.

“Okay, I found the book I need. Um, Margo, are you okay?” Quentin was saying.

Margo waved him off, never once looking up from her book. “Yeah, I’m fine. You go, I want to finish this story.”

Quentin walked off. Margo kept reading. She sat cross-legged between the shelves and thumbed through every page of the book. She admired the smears left behind from some of her soulmate’s messy handwriting. She noticed every ink spot, every tear mark that made this journal different from hers. Every personal touch that proved this journal was her soulmate’s, the one and only Alice that she’d been talking to all these years.

“What do you think you’re doing?” She was pulled out of her reading by the sound of someone yelling at her. A small blonde girl snatched the book away, looking utterly pissed off. “This isn’t a library book. It’s my personal journal.”

Alice. Margo had found her. She started to say, “I know--”

“You know?” Alice cut in. She frowned deeper at Margo. “Of course you know. How much did you read? You know, I could report you…” Alice kept going. Margo had a hard time containing the smirk that wanted to break out on her face. She was _perfect._ Every inch of her was seething with fury, from her lace flats to her long blonde hair. She was the most adorable thing Margo had ever seen.

Without a word, Margo started pulling her own journal out of her bag.

Alice stopped mid-rant. “What is that?”

This time, Margo didn’t hold back the smirk from her face. “I only picked up your journal because it looked familiar.” She held up her own journal to the other girl. “I’m your soulmate. I’m Margo.”

Alice stared at her in disbelief. After a minute, she took the journal from Margo and started leafing through it.

The blush on her face grew worse as she read the journal and saw that Margo had been telling the truth. Margo grinned like the cat that caught the canary. She felt strangely proud that she’d been able to make her soulmate blush so quickly, even if the other girl was probably blushing more out of anger and embarrassment than anything else. Still, Margo liked knowing she could get a reaction from her. She liked knowing that her soulmate was as private as she was. And she definitely liked the way Alice turned red when she was flustered.

“Oh,” Alice said, dumbly. Margo bit her lip to keep from laughing. Alice adjusted her glasses, still looking half-angry. Only now, her anger seemed to be directed at herself. She stumbled over her next sentence, seemingly desperate to fix the situation she’d found herself in. “You wanna go out sometime?”

God help her, Margo did.

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings:
> 
> Mention of a hungover Eliot  
Mention of toxic families  
Mention of loneliness


End file.
